UPLAND – A Riverside County deputy public defender and minister’s wife is scheduled to be in federal court Wednesday after she was charged with reportedly collecting her grandmother’s Social Security benefits for more than a decade after the woman’s death.

Audrey Owens, 60, is accused of collecting $129,795 over 12 years, according to a Department of Justice news release.

Owens alleged scheme was uncovered when the Social Security Administration began contacting people older than 100 last year for the department’s “Centenarian Project,” according to an affidavit in support of the complaint.

Owen’s grandmother, Pollie Gayden, was included in the project but SSA representatives were unable to reach her.

Through an investigation, officials learned Gayden who once lived in Kansas City, Mo., had moved to Upland after 1995 with her granddaughter, identified as Owens, officials said.

Gayden died in May 2000. During that same time frame, officials concluded Owens had changed the address of a joint bank account where Gayden received her Social Security benefits to an Upland address on Kelly Street which happens to be the home Owens shares with her husband.

A few days after a special agent with the Los Angeles office of the SSA visited Owen’s home in August last year, the SSA received a copy of Gayden’s death certificate, according to the affidavit.

Investigators learned Owens had reportedly used the money to pay for bills after her husband’s online company went out of business and was not receiving any income from ministering at an Upland church. Records also show she gave $300 to the Riverside County Employee Campaign.

According to the affidavit, Owens told the special agent she knew using the money was wrong. She explained she thought she had closed Gayden’s account following her death and was using the money from her deceased father’s Veterans Administration account. Both her grandmother and father banked at the same financial institution in Kansas City.

Owens is charged with suspicion of theft of government funds which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison.